So the only documents that might conclusively tie Warman to the infamous Anne Cools post no longer exist. Everything else is probabilities, and the most elaborate attempt to calculate these put the odds that Warman made the post in question at about 1 in 300against.

Except Warman's frantic efforts to prevent this evidence from showing up are a very strong indication that he was indeed the poster. Otherwise he ought to have let the other guys bring evidence that he would know would exonerate him from that particular accusation.

So Im strongly suggesting that Warman is indeed the poster of the Ann Cools post. Logically, in 10 minutes or so, Kinsella will gloat on his stupid blog that Im about to have a gazillion $ libel suit against me. But since Im going to make this post anonymous, you guys will have to go to your IP records to figure out my identity, and then maybe, if Im lucky, there will be many blogs devoted to who is the actual poster of this post.

Only I will know for sure.

I wish I could have telephone conversations with nazis. I've never interacted directly with one in my entire life.

Ti-guy, take comfort in the fact that, at least, you and BCL are speech-suppressing fascists.

Everything else is probabilities, and the most elaborate attempt to calculate these put the odds that Warman made the post in question at about 1 in 300 against.

BCL, that's not what "Lance" (the guy you linked to) thinks. Not remotely. In fact, it's the opposite of what he thinks. I'll charitably assume you just need to re-read him.

He estimates that the Cools posting must have come from one of 340-odd computers. If that's true, the odds of the posting coming from Warman's computer would be 1 in 340 - BUT UNDER ONE CONDITION: that the average computer account in that group had a track record of posting inflammatory, anonymous messages at Stormfront during the relevant period.

So ask yourself this: what's the probability of that condition being true? To put the question another way: what proportion of Canadian computer accounts posted inflammatory, anonymous messages at Stormfront during September/October 2003?

Well, let's try some wild-ass guesses. One in a 1000? That would give about a one-third chance that some computer other than Warman's was the source of the message? But - if we assume 10 million computer accounts in Canada - it also predicts that Canadians would post some 10,000 suspect messages at Stormfront in that period. LOL.

One in 10,000 then? Predicting a one-thirtieth chance that a non-Warman computer was involved, and a something like 1000 Canuck provocations at Stormfront. Still too high.

Try one in 100,000. A 1-in-300 of a non-Warman computer 100 suspect messages at Stromfront. This is plausible, though still high IMO.

So: 1-in-300 against Warman rather than 1-in-300 for him. Did you say you were Chief Statistician at StatsCan, or am I thinking of someone else?

Now, I'm no expert on any of this; I'm just trying to work out the probabilities based on assertions that have been made by others. I should add that even if the probability points to Warman's account doesn't mean that Warman himself posted the message or that it was posted with his knowledge. Apart from wardriving scenarios, we know he hung around with some radical types in Vancouver; perhaps he also did in Toronto.

Ti-guy, take comfort in the fact that, at least, you and BCL are speech-suppressing fascists.

I'm vehemently opposed to censorship. So you can dispense with your little delusions about fascism. Censorship is required by fascism and it is manifested overwhelmingly on the Right...from Stephen Harper's muzzling of his party and the civil service, to Ezra Levant's selective moderation of comments in any number of venues he's controlled, to all the bannings and deletions and intimidation/silencing by trolls that occur among Teh Boggin' Torees.

All I'm supportive of is people being held responsible for what they say...not preventing them from saying it.

All I'm supportive of is people being held responsible for what they say...not preventing them from saying it.

This is censorship. How do you think the brown shirts, or Castro, or Stalin, suppress criticism of the government: make an example of those who speak out.

You see, even for these guys, "preventing them from saying it" is impossible to implement. No govenrment can prevent murders or robberies, so preventing offensive speech, before it happens, is a tall order.

So dont hide behind your "being held responsible", there is only one word for that and it is pure and simple censorhsip.

This is censorship. How do you think the brown shirts, or Castro, or Stalin, suppress criticism of the government: make an example of those who speak out.

Are you incapable of critical thinking and nuance? The people targeted by various laws, complaints and torts are being accused of much more than speaking out. They're being accused of various degrees of defamation which is a core issue our legal system deals with.

Stop being hysterical and go back to arguing the principle upon which free speech absolutism is based...that you should be able to say whatever the hell you want and not have to be held responsible for it.

It's the only premise that is consistent; if you stray from it, you start sounding insane.

So dont hide behind your "being held responsible", there is only one word for that and it is pure and simple censorhsip.

Well, it's "one word" the meaning of which you don't seem to understand. No one can help you with that.

Anyway, nice of you to avoid the issue of actual censorship on the Right. You guys are the best.

You're confusing three things: censorship, prior restraint, and a publisher's right to choose what to publish.

Prior restraint is a kind of censorship, but not the only kind. Having a government body "holding you responsible" for what you've said, and imposing fines or other measures if you've said the wrong thing, is also censorship.

Not that censorship is necessarily a bad thing. Laws against child porn are pure censorship, but defensible.

If an editor or blogger chooses not to publish someone's submission, he may be a rat, especially if he's trying to suppress a point of view, but it's magazine (blog), and he can run it as he sees fit.

When the government, or a power resembling government, gets involved, then we can talk about censorship.

stuff that happens on blogging tories site is not censorship: these websites are their own forums and deleting comments or such is simply refusing a forum to individuals. these individuals are free to get their own forums.

libel, defamation, hate speech, all these are actual forms of censorship, strictly speaking. i have no particular issues with these, so Im no free speech absolutist. The reason Im not against these is because they are well defined exceptions to the general principle of free speech and are handled by courts who always seek to balance freedom of speech and the values underlying libel, defamation and hate speech. Also, rules of evidence and an impartial judiciary go a long way in ensuring that such cases are handled in a just way.

What Steyn and Levant published was so far from anything defamatory that these cases should have been thrown out right away, as the HRCs are entitled to do.

Levant was showing his readers the main artifact of one of the major news stories of the day. And Steyn was making political commentary.

I'm going out on a limb here, and hoping that even you Ti-guy can distinguish between libel, hate speech on one hand, and news reporting and political commentary on the other.

the more Kinsella gloats the more I know his case is weak and he's just doing his usual bullshit, bluster & bravado. A good lawyer would be quiet and go about the business of representing his client's best interests. Not Kinsella, he's in full "Me, Me Me . . look at Meeeeeeeeeee".

You're confusing three things: censorship, prior restraint, and a publisher's right to choose what to publish.

When exactly did I assert anything about those things, Pariah?

I'm talking about the purest meaning of censorship, unencumbered by a complex of legal/cultural considerations or one that is confused with other types of actions that are exercises in free will...such as prior restraint.

As for publishing...I'm starting to have grave doubts about the exercise of editorial good judgment and considerations of "public interest" in an era of media concentration and cross-media ownership when it comes to news and current events reporting. If anyone, especially an intellectual keen on being a pariah, is really concerned about actual censorship (as opposed to hysterical panic attacks about liberals bringing about the Third Reich or resurrecting the Caliphate or whatever end-times fantasy is currently motivating wingnut rhetoric), this is one issue that should attract his or her attention.

I'm going out on a limb here, and hoping that even you Ti-guy can distinguish between libel, hate speech on one hand, and news reporting and political commentary on the other.

I can; quite easily in fact. Unfortunately, the free speech warriors, which consists of a coterie of some very practiced liars and their associates who command unmerited media attention (one of whom is going to jail soon) need to be reminded of how important to true democracy, real liberalism, and civil society those distinctions are.

Otherwise, they'll convince us soon that invading Poland is a good idea.

In theory, you could subcontract dudes in India to cheaply fact check selected blogs on a daily basis and, for $4.99 a month (better: free, with ad placement), allow bloggers to affix a "This Blog Is Certified As Third Party Fact Checked" image to their blogs.

Eh? It's win-win for everyone. Readers get a better product, Bloggers get credibility, it bakes a bigger blogsphere "pie", for everyone, and enhances discourse.

Would you be interested in being an "early adopter" beta tester, BCL? We need a high-volume "mischaracterizer" to stress-test the database connection pool.

Version 2.0 will include a "Certified As TiGuy Free" option for blogs with the good taste to ban TiGuy and trolls like TiGuy, who are a cancer on the body politic.

Would you be interested in being an "early adopter" beta tester, BCL? We need a high-volume "mischaracterizer" to stress-test the database connection pool.

Version 2.0 will include a "Certified As TiGuy Free" option for blogs with the good taste to ban TiGuy and trolls like TiGuy, who are a cancer on the body politic.

Your complex and entertaining ad hominem was impressing me there, William G., and then you lost it at the very end.

It really is hard for the Right to keep on lid on the hysteria, isn't it?

You guys should really swear more. A well-placed "fuck you, Ti-Guy, you cunt!" would go a long way to clearing that ball of anger and bile at the pit of your stomachs which, by being suppressed, only encourages humourlesness, irrationality or complex and pointless blather.

Or, you could all exercise more, advice the fatties in Harper's inner circle would do well to heed.

Lance's calculations were done, if I recall correctly, before it was established that the IP in question was being used by Rogers as a proxy. This is why we have so many different and varied users holding it, and why some that use it seem to have their IPs changing instanteously, and then back. Indeed, in Klatt's own testimony he mentions that xxx.204 became xxx.200 and then back.

I'll try to get around to sending the material to BCL, but within the group of IPs that seem to reflect whatever pool of Rogers subscribers this is, there seems to be one or maybe two Canadian white supremacists (or nationalists, as they prefer).

If this were a court-case and I were defending Warman, I don't think it would be hard to create a reasonable doubt here.

Yeah, Buckets, but what I wanted to do here was put all that to one side and work as if Lance's assumptions were 100% correct. As a matter of fact I don't think they are, but even so his case is basically that it has to be one of 341 computers in the Ottawa area.

Lance has a whole theory re the way Rogers assigns IP numbers (which I don't think is correct, but whatever). While, he claims, its done dynamically, IPs are only switched with computers in relative proximity to one another. So there's only 300 and change computers amongst which the IP in question would have circulated, and all would have only been within a certain distance of one another (and Warman's computer). He's ignoring or wasn't aware of the whole proxy issue, and is probably also ignoring the possibility that the IP might have been given to a computer in an office, Internet cafe, or etc.

Unlike, oh say, Ezra? Difference being that Kinsella is a cheerleader and spectator while Ezra is a participant. So if you're arguing that the loader the boast the emptier the case what does this say for Ezra?

Yeah, Buckets, but what I wanted to do here was put all that to one side and work as if Lance's assumptions were 100% correct. As a matter of fact I don't think they are, but even so his case is basically that it has to be one of 341 computers in the Ottawa area.

Yes, we're all going on the assumption that Lance is correct. None of the participants in this thread appears to be a technical expert, and you, BCL, have clearly garbled the facts from Lance's post.

Never mind. We can still talk intelligently about the implications of Lance's theory. BCL, you're still holding out for 1:300 odds in favour of a non-Warman computer being the source of the post? Didn't you absorbe anything from my 10:55 AM post? I'm ready to give up on you.

Your earlier posts rely on making assumptions re how many Neo Nazis (or dumb kids) might have been living in the vicinity of Warman during the time in question and posting to Stormfront. I have no idea, and either do you. You're pulling those odds out of your butt. The fact is according to Lance's assumptions those messages could have come from 340 other possible computers from somewhere in the vicinity of Ottawa. And of course one of those possible computers might have been in a public library, internet cafe, etc.

Of course I was guessing: I called them wild-ass guesses. But you're missing my logic. I was trying to see if there was some number (some putative proportion of Canadians posting at Stormfront in the timeframe) that (1) supported the pro-Warman position and (2) was plausible on other grounds.

I concluded that any number that gave reasonable odds for the pro-Warman position also predicted absurdly high numbers of inflammatory posts by Canadians at Stormfront in the relevant period.

And the fact remains that your original 1:300 cite misrepresented Lance's actual conclusions, and you should really correct it.

OK, I've got to back to work, but here's the mistake you're making: You're assigning an equal probability to each one of those 340 computers. Yet, given Warman's Lucy posts, we must ascribe a higher probability to Warman's PC than to anyone else's.

Let me give you a real-life comparison. I'm peripherally involved in an unimportant NGO. A couple of years ago there was a huge blow-up, and one of the main guys (our only paid employee, in fact) quit in a rage. A few months later, various members began to receive poison-pen emails. Who were they from? Some basic detective work showed they had been posted from a public-access computer in Greenwich Village, a few blocks from Mr. Disgruntled's apartment. And he was our only member in the New York area.

So, was Mr Disgruntled responsible? Almost, but not quite certainly. You and I know he was, though. More important for our discussion: if we were trying estimate a probability, how would we go about doing it? Well, to be fair, it would be hard, but... one thing we wouldn't do is ascribe equal probability to all the 250,000 people living in Greenwich Village. But that, effectively, is the logic you're following here.

And there's still the matter of you misrepresenting Lance's actual opinions.

"OK, I've got to back to work, but here's the mistake you're making: You're assigning an equal probability to each one of those 340 computers."

An entirely different crap math argument then the one you were making earlier. Why don't you settle on what crap math argument you want to present, and I'll try to answer that one rather than toggling back and forth between one and the other whenever you feel you're losing the argument.

"And there's still the matter of you misrepresenting Lance's actual opinions."

More assumptions. One can just as easily assume that Warman is less likely to have made that post because he's been interacting with hate sites for years and knows what he should and shouldn't say.

(There was a apparently a bit of a learning curve here. For example, at one Warman did post material technically in violation of section 13 because he was quoting offensive material others had written. One of the HRCs complained about this and he promised to stop. Don't recall when that was in relation to the Lemire case.)

So what you are really saying, bcl, is that FD and Lemire made the serious allegation against Warman, with out having the proper, conclusive evidence to do so.

So all this gibbering about odds and probability mean nothing, really. FD and Lemire should never had made the allegations without the proper evidence - which they did not have because even Rogers does not have it.

FD and Lemire should never had made the allegations without the proper evidence.

FD would be deserted if that were common practice over there. Defamation of all kinds is its raison d'être, and when anyone bothers to notice it, the free speech bores jump in with their tedious parsing, speculation and now...computer modeling.

In all this exposure to "fwee speach," I have yet to learn anything useful, except perhaps to note that the shriller the defender of free expression is, the less he or she has to say.

We're all gonna look back on this, and find that you really were one of those liberal fascists who only want free speech for your kind, not for everybody. Nice to know what your true colours are, and what you really think of the Charter of Rights. It's only meant for YOU leftards, nobody else, so that you can harass and browbeat others to conform to your blind ideology. Sorry, not buying into it.